TravelBlog 2.5 – The Importance of Being There (sometimes)

Another trip comes to a close, and it reinforces for me once again the importance of being able to meet, face-to-face, the people that you are working with at least once in a while. Whilst the progression in tools to help us collaborate with others in spite of geographic dislocation has been dramatic in the past couple of decades, the trust that we need to build in one another to help us get to grips with the task at hand seems so much easier and quicker when you are in the same physical space.
It's not to say that meaningful social relationships cannot be fostered in an online world… it's just that there is a big difference between a social relationship and a social relationship with people you need to work with. Moreover, the need to discover common interests and shared ground can happen naturally in small talk that is so hard to replicate on digital platforms.
It's been a good few days, meeting my colleagues in New York and Detroit. Many ideas have been spurred as a result of the conversations that have come from different perspectives than those I usually hear in London.